


How to utilize suburban paranoia in six words or less

by Swamp_Cat



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: M/M, no one dies, this is also an 80s au cuz i said so, treebros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 16:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10971330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swamp_Cat/pseuds/Swamp_Cat
Summary: They Could Have Been Friends





	1. Chapter 1

There was something soulful about staying up deep into night, alone in your bed, just reading or messing around. It was a lonely glow that took up a whole heart, until there weren't any empty pieces anymore. Evan felt like the single room, the white sheets, the carefully chosen pictures and posters, all this was a universe. Neat, as he knew it. Safe. Folding into itself infinitely, on and on, smaller and smaller. People forgot all the time, infinity went both ways.  
It was colored in with music, sometimes. Like a gas filling its container and billowing against the corners and the walls, seeping through the door. Evan didn’t play music out loud often because his mom worked strange shifts, and she needed rest.  
When he didn’t, the universe was inside him instead, coming in through the ears. These were some of the best nights of his life. It should've been sad. It didn’t feel sad. It felt like a sanctuary.

_

  
Sanctuary was sanctuary, but isolation was isolation. After three days with his legs fused to the bed, no will to shower or eat, and a head so full of words it seemed to swirl like a riptide, Evan’s mom gave up on pointed looks and asked him if he would like to go out sometime on her next day off. It was very kind of her, he knew. She was very nice in a way that made you feel like you were suffocating. It wasn’t anyone's fault, wasn’t anyones problem, and some days Evan hated her for that.  
He hated more than anything that there was no one to blame for all the noise in his head.

_

  
Not that it stopped him from blaming people, blaming anybody, anything. Sometimes it was the dull color of the sidewalk cement. Sometimes the ashy taste in his mouth. Endless, tedious homework. Buzzing chatter of his peers. The stares on the walk from science to lunch. The cafeteria. Jared, with his endless prodding and poking and pushing. The aching tiredness that followed him from bed and back again. But those things were correlation, not causation. Right? If he was normal, they wouldn’t feel like that.  
How could he walk around demanding these things change for him when he had already taken so much? He wasn’t blind, he saw how tired his mother was, he saw the blatant disinterest in the set of Jared’s mouth with every new question, new fact, new word out of Evan’s mouth. It was so much work trying to figure out what would keep people from knowing next. All he was capable of was self pity.

The summer was supposed to be a reprieve, but to Evan it was just a different kind of dread. Days went down the drain like water. Gone was the anxiety creeping up his throat in the lunch line, the sweaty palms, the stuttering and tripping over vowels. Instead silent fits of nausea seized him, a defined paranoia working through the back of his neck. If he couldn’t fix it fast enough, his heart started kicking like it was running for its life. By then he lost control of his breathing.  
He’d spent whole days on edge, playing a terrifying game of avoiding his mom just enough to ward off suspicion, but not to much to grab her attention. He didn’t know what she’d do if she saw one of the episodes go down. He didn’t want to see that disappointed look, the down tilting, “I thought we were getting better, Evan.”  
The truth was, he was on a downward spiral, had been since forever. He was drilling himself into the ground. And now- now it was too comfortable. It was too high up to get back to the light again. Reaching out, telling anyone- it would pull him apart.

_

  
Gravity was dragging down every molecule of his body at once. It sucked, plain and simple. Like a vacuum. Most days were like this now, probably because he made no effort to move, ever. Tiredness permeated his atoms.  
It hadn’t taken much to climb the tree, though. That’s how it was: feel tired, feel tired, find task you couldn’t avoid, blank out your brain until it was over.  
Evan put his back to the trunk regardless of bugs, looking down at the ground below. There was light coming through the leaves, sun shining in the empty field only a few hundred feet away. The world seemed to melt with the warmest yellow color. It seemed he could melt under that warmth, to just disappear. Everything felt right, everything felt certain. He thought about his mom and how tired she looked.  
After a few minutes, when he was having trouble keeping his eyes open, he let them close.

_

  
The house was full to the brim with yelling. He had woken up to it. The floorboards complained as he picked himself out of bed, slumped himself into the kitchen. Making cereal was a dodging game. He finished his breakfast as fast as possible. Grabbed his walkman, put in his dad’s Tears for Fears cassette. Like always, deaf to the world, sitting in the middle of the floral patterned couch, with its rough brocade and chipped woodwork. Eyes closed. His mother and father would whirl around him, an earthquake and a tornado. They'd go faster and faster, screaming out a cacophony and breaking all the glass.  
But Evan couldn't hear them. He sat still, he made no noise, he wasn't even there. Not really.

Really, he was rollerblading down the asphalt, in smooth, purposeful strides. Really, the sky was a kind of dusty periwinkle, and it tinted the neighborhood. Really, had just crossed Aspen way and was passing Alana's house. He thought of her. She wanted to go to Harvard, ever since she was six years old. Really, it was night, and the stars had always been too strong to go away for human mistakes. They shined through pinpricks in the ozone.

Evan began to sway on the skates, soft curving from the left of the street to the right of the street. There were no cars. There was nothing to worry for and nothing to think of, not really. He kept going, turning at important landmarks, only paying attention to the sky.  
One foot after the other.  
He went, and he went, and he went. Farther and farther away from where he had come. Houses stopped dotting the side of the road. Grass became taller. There were wildflowers, towering trees on all sides, the green leaves exploding like thunderclouds. The road became rougher. Eventually it ended, with a crumbling curb and beyond that- just forest. Evan unstrapped and untied his skates. His socks were light green and patterned with dark green leaves. His mom had bought them for him, in a pack of tree-themed socks- it was one of the birthday gifts that had actually been spot on. She had been so happy, they’d hugged, and it was like for once nothing needed to be said. It was just there.

Evan was a vapor sewn to the sky. Old leaves crunched mutedly under his feet as he walked. Plants and briars caught on his pants, the lightest of hands reaching out as he walked by.  
The smell of dirt and leaf mold was a cloak around his shoulders, the green life of the vegetation like taking a deep breath through the eyes.  
He touched the patterns in the rough and smooth bark as he passed, vine maple, red alder, douglas firs. Beach trees uncursed by knives. His socks were getting damp, the recent rain keeping the earth saturated, it seeped through the fabric.  
Licorice ferns and cattail moss curled out of his path, stair-step moss peeking up to watch him go. The trunks leaned and twisted curiously. Oxalis oregana drifted up, questioningly, from the understory, peeking out and blinking in gold light. Some settled into his hair, others back down with a huff.

The clearing was vaguely encircled by a group of massive western red cedars. The crowns of each tree reached way above the canopy of the forest, all craning for sunlight. Their roots tangled with each other, spanning out and appearing through the forest up to a 20 foot distance. The ground here was carpeted by red needles, almost soft underfoot. Only the hardier shrubs grew in dirt that acidic.  
As Evan walked through, some sap-soaked cones stuck to the bottom of his feet. He paused, picked one off, and put it in his pocket.  
A few feet into the clearing, there was a rock. It was overgrown with moss and lichen, soft and padding. The kind that grew thin and feather like. Dicranella moss, he thought. It was more common in central Europe.

Connor Murphy was sitting on the rock. He was slouched, facing to the left of Evan. A curtain of hair blocked his face from view, but as Evan crossed the threshold of the glade, Connor saw him. He looked expectant. He looked relieved, content, normal, familiar. So unquestionably familiar.

It rained slowly. Evan came closer to the rock.

“It’s been dry out here,” Connor said. He sounded sad.  
Evan looked around at the rain, at the droplets suspended on Connor’s shoulders and hair. He looked at the sky, and it was dark grey, tumultuous clouds.  
Connor watched him, and now his face looked sad too.

“What’s wrong?” Evan asked him. He didn’t understand. There was something thrumming under the skin of the air. It was heavy and small.  
Connor seemed to fold into himself, the shadows in his clothes multiplying. More absence of light than material. Evan didn’t like it, he wanted to hold on, needed to keep it solid. Solidness held his world together. But Connor continued to slip away.

“I’m afraid it might start burning.”

_

  
Evan woke up to a burning pain in his arm. Accompanying that pain was a slur of intense, throat choking panic and fuzzy confusion. Panic because, ow, confusion because, where the hell?

Pain exploded in his chest when he tried to raise himself up. A strangled sound ripped out of his throat as he fell back into the dirt.  
He couldn’t get in a whole breath without a stabbing pain. He couldn’t think. Thoughts were looping, barely coherent, just a siren of wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. Get up- he needed to get up. To stop hyperventilating. To get help. But he couldn’t. Somebody will come, he thought. They’re on the way right now. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.  
He couldn’t make himself believe it.

_

  
Evan couldn’t remember getting up and walking home. He couldn’t remember being in the hospital, or what Heidi said, or what the doctors told him to do with his cast when he showered. All he knew was a fuzzy guilt about hospital bills. There was some sense of irony in him breaking an arm right before the first day of senior year, but when it appeared, it was hollow. Not even high enough caliber for a pity party. Evan felt like he was walking through a massive room somebody filled with smoke machines, just touching the walls looking for the door.  
His mom was definitely concerned. He definitely needed to muster something, a reassurance, just a simple conversation to prove that there was even anything going on in his head. It didn’t happen. Smiles, small ones, were easier, so he could answer most things with that and a nod. It must’ve been confusing to her, and upsetting, and distressing. All he’d done was fallen and broken his arm. She must have been thinking, why is he so sensitive? So tired, on the night shift, reminding him of his pain medication. One night, he caught her hiding it in the safe she hid her wedding ring and cash. The shame and anger of that one thing caught him in a wave of unexpected resentment. A little bit because she might have known exactly what had happened, leaving him in silence about it the entire time. Mostly because she probably just saved his life.

_

  
It was not a good morning. It was only a few weeks into the school year, and still, just getting out of bed was like swimming through concrete. It was like his limbs hated him. Not to mention functioning with the cast. Showering was a pain in the ass, eating was a pain in the ass, even good things sucked a little bit. It was a hulking, embarrassing reminder of the way he was a failure.

And now, Evan was going to be late. He was going to miss the bus, they'd leave without him, it'd take him like 15 minutes to even figure out they were really gone because he was an idiot, and then some student or teacher would take pity on how embarrassing he was and tell him. And then he'd sit in the office all day, having people come through and see him sitting there like an idiot, all because the stupid laundry machine had to give up and stupid Evan had to have a panic attack just because he didn’t have the right clean shirt -  
but that stream of thoughts ended with an abrupt slam.

The world tilted in an ugly way. It took Evan a while to recalibrate. He was on the ground. No pounding, alarming pain in his head or arm, so that was good.  
“Oh fuck,” Came a sleepy and kind of surprisingly unsurprised voice.  
A stinging started in Evans palms. They were shredded, studded with gravel. He looked up.

Connor Murphy was looking down at him with half lidded eyes. Connor Murphy. It came to his attention, painfully slowly, that he had just full-body slammed Connor Murphy. Evan’s brain turned into scrambled eggs, or got scrambled like eggs, he didn't know, but it wasn't good.  
“Sorry,” Evan stuttered out, because trying to start a sentence with anything but sorry was like trying to lift weights with his tongue.  
“I uh-” He looked at the ground again, away from Connors tired, yet somehow still scary intense gaze. Heat gathered behind his eyes, but he squelched that shit back with a vengeance. Just, no way. Not today.  
Books and papers were scattered on the pavement because Evan was a fool with a broken backpack. Shit. He didn't like to curse, but shit.

“Fuck.” He muttered.  
Connor laughed from where he stood. Evan began shuffling his papers together. It wasn't so bad, having loose papers had always made him anxious. Because what if a teacher asked for that exact paper and he had to rummage around in his backpack while they waited, and watched, and looked at him? So he kept them all neatly in his folders and binders. They all had a place to go. He just had to…. figure out where. Almost an entire subject’s worth were now on the ground. The packet he knew belonged in his biology binder was splayed out a few feet away. He reached for it, trying to focus on not focusing on the fact he was blocking the sidewalk, when another pair of hands grabbed for it. Evan jerked his head up in surprise, a colossally bad move, he realized as he came in contact with Connors chin. Hard. Connors teeth snapped shut with a crack. Evan had forgotten he was even there. The force of it displaced Connor’s precarious crouch, and he landed on his ass, palms crunching Evans biology packet into hopelessness.

Evan, he had been prepared for death since four in the morning. A sense of certainty filled him in the split second it took Connor to react. Only, as Connor shuffled on the pavement, Evan was somehow not immediately struck down. Only, from what Evan could tell with his eyes squeezed shut, Connor was giggling.

There was a- reaction. To that. Some part of Evan started to freak out. Not an- unpleasant freak out. But there was some concrete-facts-of-life being turned upside down.  
It wasn't some kind of bambi giggle, or anything. Connor's voice was hoarse and it was bordering the line of snickering. He even snorted a little bit. It just, wasn't mean.

Huh.

Evan blinked. He was aware on some plane that his hands were no longer collecting papers.  
Conner started laughing harder. It seemed so genuine that Evan felt a bubble of hilarity rising in his own chest, and before he knew it he was doubled over with it. It seemed so fucking funny that he almost couldn’t catch a full breath. Not in the bad way, either.

“I a-am so, so sorry,” Evan said between the breathless laughter, because old habits die hard. Or in this case, they die never. Connor just snorts and heaves himself onto his knees. Evan breaks from whatever the heck that moment was with the clarity of glass falling, remembering his very imminent field trip and almost knocking Connor over again in his haste. They get Evans papers together, finally, but his backpack is totally helpless.  
Evan looks at the backpack. Connor looks at the backpack.  
Connor looks at Evan. Evan looks at Connor. His eyes are red.

“Do you wanna skip?” Connor says the same moment Evan blurts out “Sorry,”.

“What?” Evan doesn't stutter on that one, but the w sound is stretched out like he forgot what he was saying.

Connor fidgets. He wasn’t smiling now.  
“I mean your backpacks fucked, dude. I was- heading to the orchard. To skip. You could - uh- come.” Connor evaluated Evans dubious expression.  
“Never mind.” He said, quickly, as though regretting his decision.  
Evans scrambled egg-brain raced terribly. He was beginning to consider a change in how he thought. Like maybe instead he could just not think at all, ever. It was in the works.  
Connor was getting up, clearing his throat. Evan was still on the ground. Connor kept walking to where he was going before Evan - yeah. Evan couldn't see him, but his footsteps sounded fast.

-

The bus was gone when he got to school. It was 15 minutes past 8:30, and as the permission slip promised him, they did not wait for anybody. The sun was shining brightly against the bare blue sky, and it felt barren in that asphalt parking lot. Evan spotted an administrative employee peeking out the window at him. It was the one who sighed exasperatedly at him every time he came to call his mom.  
Evan turned tail and ran as fast as he could in the direction he saw Connor go.

-

The orchard? He had said the orchard, right? That was a turn left. Evan was a little surprised. The forest by the orchard was one he spent a lot of time in that past summer. Could Connor have been right there?  
Could someone really have been that close when-

“Evan?” Oh shit Murphy.

“Um hey,” Evan eloquently explained. Connor walked kind of hunched over, tucking his shoulders up and his head down. He didn’t raise it to talk to Evan. It made him look caught out.

“My bus, it l-left without me,” Evan had to walk faster than usual to keep up with Connors pace. He had long legs, hence being like five inches taller than Evan.  
Was that a weird thing to notice? Was Connor Murphy crazy? Was this a good idea? Obviously no, but it was starting to feel like an even worse idea. Connor looked at him again, a kind of particular and? Expression.

“And the lady in the office is a bitch.” Evan finished. Connor cracked a small smile at that. They walked in the quiet for a bit more, and Evan adjusted his books. He’d had to carry all of them to school and back again. Connor glanced over at him, but said nothing. They passed house after house, all beige. It was still the appropriate climate for greenery, and small weeds peeped from the cracks in the sidewalk. Evan looked at the sky. It was a slow kind of day for clouds. The sun made him squint, the silhouette of surrounding trees bright jewel green.

“Why don’t you just dump them?”  
Connor’s voice jumped Evan out of his reverie.

“Because I-I need them?” Evan said. Who just abandoned their schoolbooks? He raised his eyebrows. If he ever had to go to school and explain to his teachers he had somehow lost every bit of his work, he'd probably have a breakdown.

Before Evan would make an embarrassing noise about it, Connor grabbed one of his books from the top of the pile. He held it above his head, eyes lit up. Suddenly his posture wasn’t defensive at all.  
Evan bit his lip, determined to not care. Connor lowered the book as well as his eyebrows, smirking. He looked it over, flipped through a few pages. It wasn’t actually a school book, just a novel Evan was reading on his own. He felt… a little awkward watching Connor evaluate it.

Actually he felt like he was dying, it was so awful. God, why that one? Why the stupid fantasy elf book?  
It actually wasn’t stupid it was a great book. A really good book, with great characters, the author was one of his favorites, he’d read it like 12 times.  
Didn’t mean he wanted Connor to look at it.

But Connor only shrugged, side glancing Evan again.

“We can stop by my house if you want.” He flipped the book between his hands with long fingers. They sidetracked Evan’s gaze. He shook his head slightly, about to reassure and refuse. Connor sighed a little.  
“You don’t have to fucking carry them the whole time, Hansen.” His voice cringed away a little bit, like he was regretting the words as he spoke them. Evan felt somehow wrong footed. That was his thing.  
He said none of this.

“A-Alright.”

Connor shrugged a shoulder and started walking down a left turn in the sidewalk.

-

Connor Murphy’s house was big.  
Not mansion big, but definitely bigger than Evan and Heidi's low-ceilinged duplex. Big enough to make Evan uncomfortable. It was plantation style, which he also felt was a little inappropriate. Passing this neighborhood with its white paint and pillar-supported balconies always made him feel...weird.  
There were groomed rhododendron bushes on either side of the door. The grass was clipped in perfect, even stripes.  
Connor began to look self-conscious, which was strange. Who lives in a huge amazing house and feels bad about it? Evan had never brought anyone to his home because he’d have to warn them to sleep with their mouth closed, or prepare to be munching cockroaches.  
Well, Jared had been over. When his mom made him go. Jesus.  
Connor rushed across the lawn to the front door, forcing Evan to jog after his long-legged strides. There were no cars in the drive, but he still glanced around suspiciously. Probably a habit, Evan thought. He probably skips a lot to smoke.

Immediately following the thought was a pinch-twist of guilt. Why did he jump to the worst conclusion? Connor was actually not terrible to him. He didn’t even believe that. He didn’t even care. Besides, school sucked. People in school sucked. If Evan could, he would be doing the same.  
Well. Now he was. Skipping, that is. Evan wasn’t going to do drugs.

_

Evan was going to do drugs. Evan was totally going to do drugs. He was also having a hard time breathing. Connor was holding a joint.  
Oh god.  
Connor watched his face carefully from where he sat. He fidgeted the thing- the joint- in his fingers. He hadn’t lit it yet, because Evan was frozen up and not talking from the second he had taken it out. Even though he had made up his mind since the moment he turned his back on the school. Even though he was definitely, totally doing this.

“Uh,” Connor said.

“I, uh,” Evan replied. He wetted his lips. His mouth was dry. They made eye contact. A cricket chirped somewhere. The wind blew. Still they maintained eye contact. It felt like a stand off.  
The awful ridiculousness seemed to strike them at the same time. They're both giggling, bending over and gasping out laughter because the day can get stranger, apparently.  
Connor falls onto his back while he laughs, the joint still tucked neatly between his fingers. He looks at Evan from the ground, and keeps looking at him as he brings it to his lips and lights it. It feels like a challenge, but it also feels like a joke. One that just they share. It’s a different, twisting feeling. The air catches as he brings it into his lungs.  
Connor breathes in as Evan does, the ember of the paper and ash flaring cherry red in the gold afternoon light. Evan had always thought of this kind of thing, when he itched to be moving. He wondered about how it worked, although his thoughts always flinched away from the ins and outs, somehow embarrassed or ashamed of not knowing, even at the most alone he could possibly be.  
Now it was as irrelevant. It was out of mind like the constant presence of oxygen was out of mind. Connor blew out a pillar of pungent smoke, coughing only a little bit. He looked at Evan, this time appraising. Sitting up, he put his lighter down. Evan watched the joint twirl in his fingers.  
Connor appeared to deliberate something. His lips were pursed.

“Just breathe in, okay?” The wind blew a strand of mousey hair across Connor’s cheek and onto his lip.  
Then he was close, so close, so very very close that Evan forgot everything that had ever happened to him except what was happening in this moment. And what was happening in this moment filled up his chest and burst out of his eyes. Time slowed down, to a moving-picture moment of parted lips and downcast eyes. It slowed to the searing in his chest and face, an impossible place to exist.  
But then there was warm breath, and like that he was back in a place where it was slightly cold and his hands were scraped and damp with dirt and he just had to breathe in. So he did, not paying attention to the smoke escaping, not thinking, this would be easier if-  
It was over. Connor was back across the ocean of boundary that was between I share a room with you and I share a feeling with you. Evan felt like there were claws raking through his lungs. He proceeded to attempt to cough them out while Connor grabbed his ribs and hacked out hoarse laughter from his side. Even as he spit and spluttered, Evan found himself helplessly smiling all the same. There was some kinds of laughter, he was finding out, you couldn't help smile to hear. Evan blinked, breathing experimentally. The urge to die through asphyxiation was mostly gone, so that was good. It was hard to clock whether he was feeling any effects of the pot. He had no idea what they'd be like, other than the “instant death” philosophy taught in health class.

Soon, though, a melting feeling filled his face, the corners of his mouth and eyes especially. He felt warm and giggly. Connor took one look at his surprised smile and promptly fell apart laughing. It seemed to be a recurring theme. It seemed so special, somehow. Evan felt himself get goosebumps.

_

  
Evan decided he liked weed. He felt like he was floating in the sky, all doubt and anxiety washed away to make room for this new, dizzy feeling. No wonder Connor skipped school for this, he thought. This was probably doing the inverse of what school did to Evan’s mental state. It felt like something was being built up inside him, rather than taken down or torn apart. Or maybe it just felt still and okay, for once. It was fucking awesome. He really liked weed.  
Connor was humming next to him, with a lazy smile smoothing out his brows and hooding his eyes. The tune was something Evan didn’t know, but it was distinctive and soft. He looked across the field, the tall grass like sea glass in the sunshine and swaying.  
Evan liked this, so so much, but he also felt like he’d been slapped into a different universe where he had friends or where he smoked pot like it was nothing or where good things happened. It was disorienting.

Sometimes, on certain nights, the whole entire world shattered. It would feel like hot iron bands were locking in Evan’s lungs. His head would ache and light bulbs would burst out, his heart would race and choke him, he’d see the end of the world. Some nights Evan could see the end of his life.  
The next morning, it was all intact. Nobody reported a hurricane in the news, no one asked him if he was okay, nobody knew. It was like he wasn’t even there. And after days and days of walking around like the inside of his body wasn’t a shipwreck, this didn’t feel real.  
He picked at the grass around him.  
Evan had a memory. It was kind of untethered from time, but he knew he must've been young. In it, his mother was wearing a threadbare robe that he'd only ever seen before in photo albums. It was white, peppered with navy roses. He thought that she had looked serene in those pictures. A softness blurred the edges of her eyes and to little boy, too young to write his own name, she was God. In those days when God was kind and ate cookies with you on the couch. In those days where God would coo when you came in from a rain storm, cover you in blankets and towels and let you break all the rules for one moment of comfort.  
In that one, particular memory that wasn't stitched together with photographs and anecdotes, Evan and his mother were sitting at the kitchen table. There was no Dad. Evan knew, because of the blank spaces in the house. Coffee maker, gone. Dad's favorite mug nowhere to be seen, a kind of hollow irony, after all the time Heidi spent asking him to wash it and put it away. There was a faded patch on the wall where a photo of Evans grandparents had been hanging.  
He remembered the empty spots, all the space they didn't fill. In that memory, it hadn't mattered. His mom was there. His mom turned on the light when he was afraid of the dark. She didn't yell, didn't become contrite and irritable at the slightest question. Maybe there were things she should have said, places she should've been, but Evan never knew her in his mind like he had known his father, and in that memory, it mattered. From there on in, he had something to fall back on which he knew would not give way under him.

He looked at Connor, and felt the distance between then and now. It was vast, and really confusing. Connor turned to him with sleepy eyes and said,

“Does that cloud look like my sister, or am I tripping?”

And it did. And while Evan laughed himself to bits for what seemed like the thousandth time that day, for what seemed like the first time that year, he let himself believe he was okay.


	2. i think my stuffed animals secretly hate me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> im a bitch whomst loves colored neon roller rink lights and sweet sweet synthesizers? its more likely than you think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a lil baby update to remind ya'll i intend to continue this for awhile

 

_ For nothing will drive them away,  _ The music was practically shaking the walls. It went in and out of Evan, and he rocked his head as he poured a glass of milk. Tapped his foot. Heidi had gone for her nightshift two hours ago, and the house was empty, the street lights spilling sodium light sepia across the pavement.  _ We can beat them, just for one day. _ Evan could see the thicket of leaves surrounding the night, vibrant green and thrown into deep blue by the moon. It was hot in the house, but hotter outside, thick and humid summer nights pervading the privacy of everyone's senses. Moths fluttered against the kitchen windows. Evan took out a plastic orange plate, closing his eyes to the song and letting his hands find the cool metal fridge handle. When he opened them, there wasn’t much to be seen. Half empty ketchup, two water bottles, some dipping sauce. There were two boxes of plain greek yogurt, and a drawer full of withered apples and a few lemons. Evan closed the fridge door.  _ We could be heroes.  _ Escapism was a funny, funny thing. There was a small, particular longing, dense and leaning hard against his heart. It lived inside the cage of his ribs. He wanted his mom. He wanted his mom to be someone else, he wanted to sleep and dream, he wanted to go home but we was standing in his kitchen. Outside, the grass was surely damp with spheres of dew, the undergrowth was surely soft, the people he could talk to were surely miles and miles away. The overhead light bulb flickered. The orange of his gingham socks against the linoleum tile floor was ordinary, was just so similar to every other day that he spent looking at the ground. It grinded down like sandpaper on his tongue. This was life, this was inescapable existence, but a terribly sad little voice was whispering.  _ This isn’t right, this isn’t fair, this isn’t home. _ Home was lying on the forest floor. When he read books the protagonist would always go to the forest to be home, to have some kind of mystic family in trees. People got homesick for rivers. Evan wanted to sleep and dream on the moss and dirt. At night, the world got sort of twisted, or flipped upside down, like he was seeing it from underwater. The forest felt just that much closer. It was like chewing on the inside of your cheek, satisfying and painful. He’d wake up with his body aching.  _ I remember standing by the wall, _

Evan wanted to go where people heard him if he spoke. 

Heard him, like, really heard him. Listened. Understood, said things right back. Evan wanted to be comprehended, fully, all of him, seen as alive and with a feeling. Like if talking could run fingers through the pain in his chest. The plastic plate clattered on the floor when he dropped it. It went unheard, music thumping in Evan’s only world of sound, and so did his footsteps, the light tapping of rain- the static of televisions in empty homes. The light chitter of mice, the lonely clunk of some unseen pipes in the walls. Evan thought he might’ve been dreaming, and the screen door swung open, letting in the night. Being asleep might be okay. 

_ Over our heads,  _

 

_

  
  


The local roller rink wasn’t very good. The music was just the same top 40 over and over or whatever the current birthday party patron had requested, and the snack bar’s soda was so carbonated that it hurt Evan’s mouth. Also, Jared made fun of him whenever he asked for a ride. Evan, quite often, wasn’t in the mood to be heckled, or to carefully extricate the difference between sarcasm and seriousness and a joking tone, or whatever the fuck. So, he didn’t ask often. Jared had a way of bringing to light every single one of Evan’s insecurities, and that was whatever, that happened every day, but Jared did it  _ loudly.  _ Like, he shouted. Multiple scenes had been caused before. Either way, Evan was deflecting his way through the school crowd towards him, deaf to the chatter with headphones over his ears. His new skates were dangling by the laces from his left hand, only knocking into people by force of momentum every now and then. He really didn’t want to ask for a ride, but he’d been saving for these skates, and they didn’t deserve cracked pavement. These 70 dollar babies deserved everything Evan was in the power to give them. Also, he’d been carrying them around all day because his school didn’t have lockers, and that effort was not going to be for nothing. A girl with wire rimmed glasses shot him a dangerous glare as a wheel caught her on the elbow, and Evan once more reconsidered using his “ordering pizza money” for an actual skate bag. He didn’t order pizza. Reading something he wanted off of a menu out loud was enough to send him into cardiac arrest, and then he’d probably stutter through his explanation of the event to the 911 operator, which would send him into another attack, and so on etc. etc.

 

Jared was sitting back against a cinderblock wall with his eyes glued to a beat up gameboy color, his tongue sticking out in concentration. The situation appeared intense. Evan decided to wait it out, running over his skates one more time with relish. They were dark blue, real leather, with orange gradient stripes and yellow wheels. They were beautiful. 

 

“Those are some weird shoes, Hansen,” Jared was apparently done with his game. 

Evan sighed. “Roller skates, Jared, they’re roller skates,” he said under his breath. Jared just laughed and got up, swinging his backpack on with apparent ease. 

“You want me to take you to the rink, looser?” He pushed his glasses up his nose.

“If you aren’t busy-” Evan began. Jared, not listening, beckoned him from his way to the school’s parking lot doors. Evan followed. 

_   
  


 

Jared had swerved his way to the roller rink as he had promised, dropping Evan off with a cheery soccer mom wave and leaving with a reckless vodka aunt u-turn. Evan stepped through the doorway with high spirits. The lights were low and purple and from what he could hear, the music was pretty alright. Regardless, he kept his eyes glued to the carpet, with its space designs stained with what looked like… pepsi? It could be cola. Who knew. It could've been blood, and Evan would still step over it with the same amount of indifference. Thankfully, the stress of renting skates had been eliminated from the rink experience long ago, when Evan was six and had started going every day. His mom thought that maybe it’d be good for him handle it himself once. When the employee asked his shoe size, he started crying. The next few weeks were mostly made of little-Evan’s stout refusals to ever go to the roller rink again, until one day, he woke up to his very own pair of skates at the foot of his bed. It had been in the inbetween times of his parents fighting. Dad Hansen thought Evan should grow up and just rent skates himself. Mom Hansen said fuck that, apparently. Evan was endlessly grateful. The song that was currently bashing it’s way out of the rink’s sound system came to an end without Evan catching the full melody, but the easily recognized first measures of Bowies _ rebel rebel  _ pumped out soon after. Evan found himself bopping his head appreciatively, sparing a glance towards the DJ booth as he sat on the bench to untie his skates. 

Oh. 

Oh  _ no.  _

Evan looked away so fast he was going to need a chiropractor from the whiplash. Untying his skates became very, very engaging. His mind raced.  _ How is that even possible? I was here last week. This is cruel, god. Oh, fuck. Oh, no.  _ Breathing eventually became necessary, and he reoriented. 

Whatever. It was fine. He hadn’t seen Evan, though he certainly would eventually if he had eyes because Evan had no ride home and Connor Murphy was slumped at the DJ booth in the god awful polo-and--veyser ordeal that paraded as a uniform around these parts. Well, this was it, he supposed. Time to find another rink, or another hobby, if it came to that. He’d had a good run. It was fine. Ice skating was worth looking into, he’d heard. Evan realized his socks didn’t match. 

He glanced up again, involuntary, considering the music choice with new, freshly traumatised eyes. 

Connor was looking right at him. 

_ Good fucking god in heaven,  _ thought Evan, oh-so-casually beginning to strap on his knee pads. They were scuffed, and not too terrible looking. The elbow pads didn’t match, but they didn’t clash either. Technically, he was supposed to wear a helmet, but he’d been coming here and buying soda since he was six, so no one cared. The owner knew him by name.  Embarrassing to peers, but not without its quirks. Slipping on the skates, Evan was almost able to forget why his heart was trying to escape from his chest by crawling out of his throat. Almost. 

God, he hoped Connor wasn’t still watching him. The laces were snug, and there was just enough room for Evan to comfortably wiggle his toes. Tentatively, he stood in his new skates for the first time.  _ Perfection.  _ The last skates to grace this rink had, to say the least, taken years off of Evans life. We’re talking double digits. The ankle support had broken four months in, and he’d worn them through what had to have been the growth of at least two shoe sizes. Most of that time had been spent in painful denial, and ice packs. 

 

The rink itself was large. It was dimly lit with purple tinted lights, aside from the unfortunate disco ball twirling in the ceiling, and today, this was very much to Evan’s advantage. There were at least 20 people skating already, and he’d be hard to pick out of a crowd.  

 

_

  
  


“Are you roller skating with a fucking cast on?” 

Oh shit. 

Evan swallowed his sprite/chemical corrosive, which nearly burned his throat on the way down. Was Connor talking to him? A fist squeezed on his heart. His blissful period of avoidance had run out.

“And no helmet?” 

Okay, clearly Connor was talking to him, but was he talking to  _ him?  _ Were they on talking standards now? Visions of Connor mugging him in the alleyway plagued his subconscious. He had been working under the assumption that the day in the orchard with Connor had been a one time thing, a fluke. Neither had addressed the other a single time in school. Connor did not seem the type to begin smiling at him on eye contact or saying “Goodmorning!”, either. 

He was looking at him now, though.  

“Uh, yeah,” he said. Connor’s suspiciously rendered eyebrows did not budge. 

 

“I, uh- I’ve known Saul since I was, like, a kid so? They let me do whatever, he knows I won’t, like, die or something-”

 

“Who the hell is Saul?” Connor interrupted. 

 

The sound of rolling and squeaking wheels layered itself under the blasting music.  Evan mused. The roller rink was really in an unassuming location, just next to the highway between a liquor store and laundromat, seven minutes from the school and ten from Evan’s house. The outside was a rusty red brick, with a flat metal roof, looking more like a warehouse than a rink aside from the large, back-lit sign hanging at the front of the building. Which, for the record, said “SAUL’S ROLLER RINK”. Evan swallowed again.   

“Um,”  he’s your boss.” 

 

Connor blinked. “Oh,” he said. Evan found himself glancing to the sign above the concession stand, which also said SAUL’S ROLLER RINK. The man did not have a particular knack for engaging design or variety. He sure did love capitalization, though. 

Connor followed his gaze, causing Evan to cringe, a bit nervous. Surprisingly, though, all he did was bark out a laugh. Evan himself would have died of mortification at being caught on such an oblivious mistake, but as the world liked to remind him time and time again, not everyone was like Evan. Sometimes that was really, really reassuring. Times like these. Connor had a small lilt to his mouth now as he looked back at him. Some kind of apologetic smile crept onto Evan’s own face. Evan went to speak, or take a deep breath, but Conner beat him too it. 

 

“My mom is the one who got me this job, so.” A small chuckle. Their bad timing seemed to be turning into something less stilted, and more of a mutual stumbling. Or just mutual fear. Either way, it was a relief. Evan laughed with him, fingers pressed into the counter of the concession stand, 30% for balance and 70% for emotional support. He looked at his feet and took a sip of his drink, stalling in hope of finding something to actually say other than  _ hey oh my god isn’t it just so crazy you work here because I come here all the time desperately trying to escape school and all the people in it? Haha?  _

 

He coughed a bit, but returned to the scene. 

 

“So, how’d-d you miss the sign on the way in?” he asked. It was phrased as a joke, but the tone pulled off a little flat. Evan sweated in desperate hope that Connor could still tell it was a joke. 

 

“I was high,” he responded.  

Evan very nearly snorted sprite down his throat. The music from the system switched to something suspiciously reminiscent of miami sound machine. Connor’s lax tone and straight face combined with a near death experience had him doubled over and cackling, big round and careless laughter. Evan thought,  _ have I ever laughed this much before? _

Connor was smirking at him when he came back up for air. He looked about as smug as one could look in a vibrant purple polo shirt. (As it turned out, pretty smug.) Evan gasped, still a bit oxygen depraved, and wiped his mouth. Connor's lips were pursed in a way that made it clear he was just barely staving off laughter. Suddenly, Evan remembered the music. 

“Hey! I mean- you’re the DJ, which is so cool by the way-” A bit overeager. “But, uh- you like David Bowie?” he cringed at a crack on the last word. Evan was pretty sure he did not succeed in toning down his excitement, but the thought of toning down his excitement for Bowie was a little bit unthinkable. 

Connor grinned. 

 

“Yeah. Bowies- one of my favorites.” When he went to tuck a piece of hair behind his ear, his fingers were painted and chipped. 

Evan gripped his drink a little bit tighter. He had to hold himself back from immediately beginning to interrogate Connor on his favorite albums, and whether he liked movies, and which ones? This common thread between them was surprising, and carefully tremulous. Evan worried his lip between his teeth. 

 

“Do you listen to the Clash?” he asked, trying his very best to sound like it didn't matter. 

 

Connor furrowed his brows. “I haven't heard of them,” he said. “Are they good?” 

 

Now, it was Evans turn to grin. 

 

_

  
  


The smell of meatloaf enveloped Evan as he stepped through his front door, a smile tucked into the corners of his mouth. Just barely, he held back a peal of delirious laughter at a memory from the night. The keychain of his lanyard jingled faintly as they swayed against his skates. Connor had laughed so hard that soda came out of his nose. He toed off his sneakers before passing the welcome mat, calling out a quick  _ I’m home!  _ For his mom. It had only made him laugh harder, and Evan had too been lost, helpless as Connor groaned from the pain. Pleasantness fluttered through his chest. A kind of weightlessness was in all of him, and it tinted the world rose-ish, sweet. 

Socks gathering electricity, Evan shuffled out of the front hall and into the kitchen, head down to hide the smile and avoid the mom-themed heckling. She was humming as she made dinner, or, as she attempted to make dinner. Meatloaf was a trial of its own steel. 

“Hey, mom.” Evan said, eyes on the floor. She looked up, surprised but not startled, licking ketchup off her thumb.

“You're home pretty late, sweetie,” she blustered about the room, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Did- did you have fun?” Two plastic plates were set on the laminate wood table. The question was placed in the air with a quick glance back and forth. Evans stomach clenched, at the thought of sharing just how much fun he had and at the knowledge that his mom was hesitant to even ask. He thought about how he'd said goodbye to Connor, how he'd forgotten to take off his seatbelt before trying to get out of the car. For some reason, it wasn't even embarrassing. Connor had laughed, but so had Evan. 

Who might have been blushing, now that he thought of it. Oh no. Heidi Hansen was a notorious Evan translator, there was no way she was letting this slide. Evan met her gaze and swallowed as a slow grin slinked its way across her face. “Yeah,” his voice cracked. “Yeah I did.” Shit. 

 

Heidi looked like she was going to cry. Evan felt death grip him as her lower lip trembled ever so slightly. “Ooooooh, my baby boy!” She put down her wooden spoon with a clatter and came to him, arms spread wide, cooing like a bird. Her special fuzzy home slippers scuffed exaggeratedly against the floor. Evan accepted the hug with a grudging smile. His mom was the best at back rubs, the deeply soothing kind that made you want to lay down forever. She hummed ever so slightly, a comforting noise always applied when Evan was sick or upset. 

Heidi pulled away, wisps of blonde hair escaping her scrunchie, scraggle-toothed smile lighting her face. Her face could be mistaken for a small sun. “Who is she?” 

 

Evans smile froze, becoming a parody of itself. A barely restrained strangled noise buried itself in his throat. “Uh,” he felt like the air had been punched from his chest. A bit distantly, he felt her rub comforting circles on his arm. Would she know? If she'd thought he had a crush before, what would she think if he said it was a boy? His fingers twitched on her back. Would she know? 

 

“I-” he swallowed, throat unexpectedly dry. Lying was not an option, not to that face. Evan was usually able to make sure that she just- never asked. “It was a boy, actually.” Confusion twisted her eyebrows, but she did not stop smiling. 

He squeaked going into his explanation, then tried again. “Uh, Connor Murphy? He's, um, he goes to my school.” Evan coughed. 

Heidi watched his face for a few silent moments, then erupted into cheer once more.

“That's great!” She let go of him, spinning around to her cooking meatloaf. She checked the oven once, made a face, and turned back to him. “I am  _ so  _ proud of you, Evan.” he was getting unnerved by her ability to render joy for this long. 

“You're finally connecting! This will be so good for you, I just know it.” She'd had her hands on her hips, but now clasped them under her chin as though watching an especially cute baby animal. Evan began to sweat the desperation sweats. The smell of ketchup and burning didn't help. 

Twisting the frayed hem of his jacket, Evan nodded and tapped his foot, forfeiting eye contact. He heard his mom sigh, a not unhappy sigh, to his relief. Somewhere along the way she had given up trying to convince him that a strong, forward gaze was the best way to make a good impression, to  _ connect with others. _ Why couldn’t other people connect with Evan? 

_ Because you’re too quiet, never speak to anybody, stutter, have sweaty hands, are stupid, generally untalented, ugly, useless _ \- 

 

“Oh, shit,” Heidi said. Smoke was pouring out of the oven.  _ Oh shit, _ Evan interrupted himself. The fire alarm began blaring immediately, causing him to slam his hands over his ears. Heidi was rolling off an impressive vocabulary of curses as she forced the oven open the rest of the way. Panicked, she flung her hands about, before grabbing the oven mitts resting on the counter and shoving them on sloppily. Evan had a shriek waiting in the back of his throat, needing to tell her it was a bad idea, unable to release the noise through the grinding of his teeth. Terrible burnt scent filled his senses as she lifted the casserole dish, slamming it into the sink and pushing on the cold water. 

They stood, both panting, as the alarm screamed and the smoke sizzled. Heidi ran a frazzled hand through her hair, heedless of its tied-up state. She looked at Evan, lips pressed together so hard they turned white. 

“Couldn’t you have helped?” She shouted, gesturing wildly towards the sink. Evan flinched, hard. She blinked at him. The fire alarm went on, Evan stock still with his hands over his ears. The faucet dripped. 

Heidi bit her bottom lip and blinked hard again. Evan watched her chest expand with one, big, sigh before she walked past him out of the kitchen and into her room. 

**Author's Note:**

> i'll be updating this. probably gonna be longish


End file.
